Maewys
Sweat. Blood. Dust. Tears.
An old memory like a dense fog, oppressive and wet, clouds through Maewys’s vision as she struggles in her sleep. Blood. So much blood. A fine mist settling over every inch of furniture and square of exposed skin.
With bitterness in her mouth, the Elemnist jolts awake, legs kicking out and striking the ground beneath her. She blinks once, twice to clear the sleep from her eyes, mouth dry and tongue fuzzy. Glancing around, Maewys gathers herself and takes in her surroundings.
Buildings like rotting teeth, a patch of stars above, cold and hard ground below. She’s slumming it in the city of Nuaranth-by-the-Sea, not reliving that fateful day twelve years ago, when her legs were still in braces.
“Why now?” She rubs her eyes and laying back down on the ground. She closes her eyes, but sleep doesn’t come.
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“So, let me get this straight,” Maewys says to Ephel, the orb stashed away in her backpack. She walks the narrow, winding streets of the Lower City where paved footpaths intersect with former rope-walks, those streets being long and parallel with each other. “A High Council formed from noble and patrician families in the Upper City governs Nuaranth.”
“Correct,” Ephel says. During her first few days in Nuaranth, the Elemnist worried that speaking to Ephel in public would draw unwanted attention. She soon found out that no one gave her a passing glance, realizing that many of the Lower City citizens spoke to themselves. Well, babbled to themselves. She still keeps the Espreth hidden away in her bag. Letting a floating glass orb follow her around is a step too far.
“A Councilor, elected from noble families, manages daily city operations.” Nuaranth as a whole has buildings like bad teeth, but the Lower City is even worse. The Elemnist comes upon a food stall, constructed from wood pallets and cloth. It used to be a shanty shack until someone got the bright idea to fill most of it with a vat of boiling oil. Regardless, Maewys buys a filet of deep-fried fish and takes a hearty bite out of it before speaking to Ephel again.
“And it’s these Councilors,” she says around a steaming mouthful of tender fish. The food catches in her throat and she has to force it down by beating on her chest, gasping for breath before taking a more modest bite. “This could use hot honey—” she’s had to ration her most favorite liquid, but still has half a jar “—these Councilors then elect, from amongst themselves, a High Councilor as their ruler?”
“The High Councilor is the outward face of Nuaranth,” Ephel says. “They meet with the leaders of other cities and speak to their own city on the High Council’s behalf. They also serve as the tiebreaker between High Council stalemates, taking a side when they can’t make an agreement. Until about a decade ago.”
“That’s when Gwydion sett Talivar placed himself as permanent High Councilor.” Despite his ten-year tenure, Gwydion shocked the world over when he declared himself dictator. “Then he reorganized the High Council, rewarding his allies and punishing his enemies, while also changing how the Council operates.”
“The Council votes on decisions for him to approve or reject at his leisure. High Councilor Gwydion also makes many decisions and policies by himself without input from the High Council.”
“People are okay with this?” Maewys asks. She finishes her fish.
“They aren’t,” Ephel says. Maewys wanders toward a specific spot in the Lower City, where the buildings are less crowded and the populace is thin. “Many either benefited or failed to see the impact, thus no resistance.”
“And they placed those that did…” Maewys slows to a halt, “here.” The Lower City Ghetto stands apart from the rest of Nuaranth like an open sore, oozing and infected. A depopulated perimeter separates it from the rest of the Lower City, a city block thick all the way around and patrolled by the Nuaranth Garrison. Gated walls seal up the streets and alleys, only allowing searched carts and wagons to cross through. Nuaranth’s factories dominate the ghetto, their machinery’s stench spreading like a dark cloud. Raw materials go in and finished goods come out.
The Garrison searches a covered wagon as Maewys looks on, examining the vehicle from top to bottom. They pull someone out, a stowaway, and throw them on the ground. While the Garrison officer speaks to the driver, filling out the paperwork and issuing a fine, the Praetors under their command kick at the stowaway. They are a Shadowarch, as marked by the black and white armband on her sleeve and the iron collar around her neck. After the wagon leaves, the Garrison officer calls off the Praetors before affixing a lead onto the collar. He drags the thrashing, kicking Shadowarch back into the ghetto. Maewys is thankful that she can’t hear the screaming this time.
“If I were to eject Elemnists from their home, that’s where I’d put them.” Maewys stares daggers at the boarded-up and dilapidated buildings across the depopulated zone.
“From what I understand, there are no secret ways inside the Lower City Ghetto,” Ephel says. “You can pass through security. Or fall from the sky.”
Maewys sighs. “Neither of which is viable.” Recently, a pigeon landed in the empty zone, only to be met with a Praetor’s boot. Climbing the buildings on her side of the depopulated zone brought Maewys to the realization that the patrols extend to the ghetto rooftops.
Maewys partakes in the locals’ favorite pastime. She picks up a loose stone and skips it into the depopulated zone. Close by, Praetors whip their heads to follow the stone until it comes to a stop, then they revert to their positions like nothing happened. The more she looks at them, the more she finds those suits of armor unnerving. With a sigh, Maewys kicks another stone into the fray and walks off.
Her feet carry her toward the docks, toward her least favorite part of Nuaranth’s Lower City: the Slave Market. Men’s laws determine slavery’s validity across city states, including Nuaranth and beyond the coast. Ephel isn’t needed to inform her that the practice predates High Councilor Gwydion. However, his leadership has expanded the definition of a slave. The Market is full of Shadowarch slaves, as denoted by their armbands, standing apart from the “other merchandise” that’s sourced from the prisons or abroad. The Market sells people of all ages and genders. Yet it’s only Shadowarch women for sale, which disgusts Maewys’s Elemnist sensibilities as is, but of all the times she’s watched the Market, she’s never once laid eyes on a Shadowarch man. Not in the Slave Market, not attempting to escape the ghetto, not accompanying their owner or employer in the Lower City or Midtown. The men do not exist. So, where are they?
“I don’t know why you insist on torturing yourself,” Ephel says. Maewys’s frown deepens.
“I’m remembering faces,” she says, “so I know who to punish when the masters put Nuaranth under an Intervention Order.”
“The Ordo Elemnata needs to respond first,” Ephel replies.
Maewys asks the same question every morning and evening: “Have they?”
“They have,” Ephel says. Maewys perks up, too eager to be angry over Ephel keeping this information from her. “They are letting the Ordo Melikinara make the final decision on that matter.”
“And they are still besieging Lemlat,” Maewys says. She’s wishing Master Guaro yielded to General Raishen.
“Correct.”
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Another thing concerning Maewys is the silence from the Ordo Corvinet. A Crow should have reached out to her, either through Ephel or directly. Complete silence in that regard. And this is after they contacted Master Guaro concerning the initial communication embargo between the Ordo Labrythyne and the rest of Ordo Elemnata. The Garrison must have discovered them too, though their secrecy leads Maewys to believe that they escaped imprisonment in the ghetto. A scary thought, regardless.
Maewys, no longer capable of stomaching the stench of the Slave Market, departs for other corners of the city. She’s come up against a wall. All her leads point to either the ghetto or the Upper City, both of which are inaccessible to her for different reasons. With the siege in Lemlat still raging, she can’t expect guidance from Master Guaro. As a stranger to Nuaranth’s streets, she has no one to lean on. Maewys finds herself back where she started the day, on a sullen street corner between two residential city blocks. She sits on the pavement and stares up at the sky, cut into wedges and quadrilaterals by the towering skyline. She closes her eyes and tunes out the bustle of the city.
“You are despondent,” Ephel says as Maewys rolls her head from side to side.
“I feel useless,” the Elemnist admits. “The only thing I’ve accomplished so far was verifying the disappearance of Ordo Labrythyne and getting my face on the Garrison’s Hit List. If anything, I’m further away from my goal than when I first arrived.”
“A minor setback, nothing more,” Ephel assures, even with their monotonous voice. “You have yet to exhaust all avenues of progress.”
Maewys swings her bag around to her lap and peers inside. “Care to enlighten me?” Ephel rises, making “eye” contact with the Elemnist.
“While the current administration has relegated most of its detractors to the ghetto, there still may be private citizens or groups working to undermine the High Council.” Ephel rises even more, nearly exposing themself. “I don’t know where to find them, but taking action against the High Council is bound to draw their attention.”
Maewys puts her chin in her hand, looking thoughtful. “The institution of slavery only benefits the wealthy. Speaking out against it would draw quick attention. I’ll have to avoid the Garrison, though.” The Garrison recognizing Maewys might prove beneficial in the long run. The enemy of her enemy is her friend, after all.
“I would suggest starting in Midtown,” Ephel says as Maewys closes the bag on them. She stands up and slings it over her shoulder. “Poor merchant families often end up resorting to indentured servitude, which invariably leads to enslavement.”
Maewys tightens her boot straps and adjusts her jacket. “Where would I be without you, Ephel?”
“You’d likely still be walking to Nuaranth,” the Espreth says.
“That was a rhetorical question.” Maewys smiles. “Let’s go raise some hell.”
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Kuna kneels in the center of the floor in the tenement building she calls home, the armband on her upper arm feeling like a load of sand. Her eyes, crinkled with stress and the onset of middle age, are closed in meditation. Harsh crystal lights illuminate the room with even the faintest scrap of darkness obliterated, bleeding through her eyelids like a white haze. Without looking, Kuna can sense where her family shrine stands honoring her missing children and their father: six and a half paces from the absolute center of the room.
Worn foot paths in the floor mark her incessant pacing, deep ruts matching her long gait formed during the first year of her interment in the Lower City Ghetto. Her muscles ache at the memory. She spent six days fighting back the Nuaranth Garrison until they took her children from her, and an additional month trying to track them down. The Praetors overwhelmed the Shadowarch. They shaved her head and threw her into the bright ghetto, leaving her to rot.
But Kuna does not rot.
She tunes out the thumping coming from beneath the floor, the knocking of an obstruction lodged in the sewers below. Kuna has tried escaping the ghetto from the sewers. They’re narrower than the ones in the city proper and only empty into the ghetto’s cesspit. It has its uses, however, in matters concerning the concealment of contraband. Or persons of interest to the Garrison.
Kuna isolates the sound of approaching footsteps. If they’re coming to her, they’ll call out. If not, then it’s none of her concern. The Garrison is far louder in their approach. Kuna would already act against them in that regard.
“Clan Mother,” a voice whispers in soft reverence. Kuna recognizes the voice of Regni, a Shadowarch of Clan Lunurian and twenty-four years her younger at nineteen. Regni was born in the ghetto, raised on stories from before High Councilor Gwydion’s betrayal, and she latched onto that history as something to resurrect. Kuna finds her absolute loyalty irreplaceable.
“You may speak,” Kuna says. Her eyes remain closed and her hands remain resting on the tops of her thighs.
“Our friends on the outside bring news of multiple attacks against the Garrison,” Regni starts. Kuna can hear the younger woman shifting into a kneeling position. “One at the Librarian Order’s sanctuary and one at the Garrison’s headquarters.”
“Are they the same person?” Kuna asks. An attack on the sanctuary means nothing. It has been a decade since any Elemnist walked those halls. But a direct attack against the Garrison? That piques her interest.
“We can’t tell,” Regni replies. “An Elemnist carried out the attack at the sanctuary, however.”
“Was it a Librarian or the one who says he’s a Librarian?” Kuna has spoken to the so-called Librarian Zacaer. He’s secretive to a fault and doesn’t trust that he is who he says he is. Though their mutual friends on the outside speak of his usefulness.
“It’s someone new,” Regni says, an eager edge in her voice. “They know how to fight and evade. They might even be from the Military Order.” Kuna furrows a brow at this. It’s high time the Elemental Order cared about the Shadowarchs’ plight. The High Council built the ghetto to house and rehabilitate criminals. Anyone with half a brain could see they meant to enslave them instead. The High Council redefined criminality, ousting less influential clans. The Garrison removed those powerful clans, like Clan Lunurian, by force. And the Elemental Order didn’t lift a single finger.
“Do we know who attacked the Garrison?” Kuna asks. “I’d much rather meet them.”
“We don’t,” Regni says, “but it won’t take long to find them. What should we do about the Elemnist?”
“I would speak to them,” Kuna says, “and find out why they’re here. Yet, I have prior matters to attend to.”
“Understood, Clan Mother.” Regni rises and leaves the square room. Kuna draws in a deep breath and sighs. Now onto other matters.
The Shadowarch opens her eyes to the harsh light and rises to her feet. She looks at the floor, cognizant of the sewer pipe below her feet, trying to ignore the heavy presence of the shrine to her left. Today is one of those days she’s unable to bring herself to look at it. Kuna rolls her shoulders and pops her joints, looking toward a dirty, threadbare rug on the floor. She walks up to it, two paces, and flips it over to reveal a rough cut hole in the floor with a few planks of wood serving as a trapdoor. She removes the planks, revealing access to the sewer, and drops inside.
She has to squat to avoid hitting her head and keeps her bare feet out of the wastewater as she scans the darkness for her property. A recent storm caused a surge of water that dislodged the barrel Kuna was keeping down here, but the darkness responds to her unyielding presence. Kuna holds out her splayed hand and flexes her fingers. A wood barrel comes flying out from the dark, stopping just a finger span from striking Kuna. She takes the barrel in her arms and heaves it out of the sewer and into her residence, following it. Kuna replaces the makeshift door and covers it with the rug, matching the edges with the dirt outline that formed over the course of twenty years. She uncovers the barrel and peers inside.
She stares at the Garrison lieutenant she’s kept prisoner, straight in the eyes. He’s a young man, eyes wide and glittering with a Bright Caster’s Inner Light, hands and feet bound, a cloth gag wrapped in his mouth and around his head. Sweat, dirt, and grime coat his skin. Rips and tears mar his rumpled uniform, souvenirs from the rough treatment he’s received since Kuna first took him while out on patrol.
“We need to talk,” Kuna says, her voice low. She stares, unblinking, at the lieutenant with hard eyes and he shrinks beneath her glowering gaze. He nods his head, hoping to at least have the gag removed. “You’re keeping the gag. I can’t trust you.” He nods his head again.
“Do you know about the attack on the Librarian Order sanctuary?” Kuna asks. The officer nods his head. “Was it carried out by a man?” He shakes his head.
“So it’s not Zacaer,” Kuna thinks, masking her face. She asks aloud, “what about the attack on the Garrison? Do you know who carried that out?” He shakes his head. Kuna assumes he thinks her friends on the outside are responsible, and he is trying to prove that he won’t squeal. She can work with that.
“Will you obey my commands from now on, boy?” Kuna asks. He nods his head, matted hair springing from the force and desperation, mumbling promises and praises through his gag.
“I’m going to close the barrel again,” Kuna says. Instantly, the Garrison officer pleads, mumbling through his spit-soaked gag. “You’re going back into the sewer. One of my friends is going to pick you up later and release you. Then, go to your mother and express your gratitude. Grovel at her feet. Then, you’ll go to your superiors and tell them exactly what happened to you, including all the questions I asked. Do not tell them it was me. As far as you are concerned, I kept you blindfolded the entire time.” Kuna closes the barrel as the Garrison officer whimpers in the dark. “You won’t know when, but my friends will contact you in the future. Obey or you’ll find yourself back in this barrel, nailed shut.”
Kuna rolls the barrel out of her residence. A trio of young Shadowarchs bow at her arrival, taking the barrel and hauling it toward another sewer access. Kuna expects her people to keep him captive for a day or two before setting him free, which is less than he deserves. Kuna retreats inside and returns to her meditation.